Love Thomas Sowell. Basic Economics is a must read.

An extremely intelligent man, and an inspiration to many all over the world.

Basic Economics is a very good book. Even if you taken University economics you will learn something and you will definitely learn how to explain things to those who did not.

His debates are also great to watch highly recommended.

His book Basic Economics is a wonderful primer for understanding basic market theory. As I've studied economics more, I've come to disagree with it in certain areas since it's very theoretical and the real world is much more complex, but it's a great intro to the discipline.

Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell is the book that got me interested in economics. It's a large but easy to understand read.

An absolutely excellent book. Read this when first starting to think about economics and followed it up with Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell.

Basic Economics is required reading for anyone who wants to claim they understand economic principles. Even if you are a hard-left Marxist you must understand classical economic theories in order to feel comfortable debating them and more firm in your own beliefs.

I’ve been reading a lot of his books lately, I cannot recommend enough. He does take a conservative approach to a lot of topics but the way he breaks things down helps you understand why.

His book Basic Economics taught me more than any economics classes did in school.

Basic Economics isn’t even required reading in an intro econ course. It probably has value for its alternative perspectives on a lot of economic concepts, but to say it’s “required reading for anyone who wants to claim they understand economic principles” is pretty demonstrably false.

If you are asking for introductory economics +1 for "Basic Economics" by Sowell and "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman (Sowell is one of Friedman's proteges).

PBS made "Free to Choose" into a series back in the 1980s. You can find all the episodes on YouTube.

Tomas Sowell's Basic Economics has a chapter on the failures of rent control, specifically addressing New York City (among others).

These controls suffocate supply and now the owners of an artificially scarce basic resource have a lot of power. It's not exactly a surprise.

That the whims of a few, or even a single bureaucrat, are not normal business risk. Read Sowell's Basic Economics on how arbitrary regulations distort the market.

Basic Economics is must read book - and he keeps improving on it. He releases new editions every few years with more recent examples of principles at work. He never stops working on it.

Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell really changed the way I perceive how money works, and furthermore it drove me to take a chance at a new business project

Basic Economics, Fifth Edition: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell

https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465...

Are you looking for books or examples of societies with free markets?

I'm not an expert but I believe you can research Austrian Economics, laissez-faire, and Milton Friendman. The deepest I went with the subject was "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell. I thought it was a good book and had compelling arguments. Its also very easy to read and American-centric so you have a lot of relatable examples.

Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt: http://jim.com/econ/, http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/Economics_in_one_lesson.pdf

Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman (video series, too)

Use of Knowledge in Society by Hayek (short, non-technical paper which is full of brilliant insights): http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html

Not a book, but the Econtalk podcast is fantastic: http://www.econtalk.org/

I think you confuse free market with "no rules, everything is allowed", which is not what I am proposing. Those monopolies you mention in the abstract are largely possible because laws make it much more difficult than it could be for competitors to arise. In a free market most monopolies are unstable and don't last long. Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom and Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics both have chapters dedicated to monopolies and how states are the main reason they can be sustained.

Negative externalities, like environmental damage, should ideally be internalized, although I grant that this is not always easy. Private ownership of all land might help, as public ownership dilutes responsibility.

> I think your view is extremely naive.

Isn't it interesting that I think the same about your view? :)

It depends how far into economics you want to get (and remember, I am not at all an economist, just an interested layperson).

A good book for getting started, IMO, is Charles Wheelan's "Naked Economics".

The first thing that I read was "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell, which I liked a lot and highly recommend - however, keep in mind that Thomas Sowell is very capitalist/right leaning, and the book is quite "biased".

A great textbook, if you really want to get further into economics, is Greg Mankiw's Principles of Economics (almost all undergrad economics textbooks are called "Principles of Economics", for some reason, so you have to search by author.) That's definitely the place to go if you want to have a more sophisticated understanding of economics than you'll just get by reading books.

My compiled list for 2020, as suggested by friends I respect and HN:

General

====

- Master & Margarita (w reader's guide)

- Why we sleep

- The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion

- The wisdom of insecurity

- The denial of death

- The three body problem (friend's advice: slow burn, stick with it)

- The dubliners

- The devils (Dostoyevski)

- The name of the rose

- Enten-Oller (Kierkegaard)

- Zero to one (Peter Thiel, recommended reading as palantir new joiner - not fantastic but has some thought provoking ideas; i.e. which very important truth would very few people agree with you on?)

Economy/finance

===

- Basic economics (Thomas Sowell)

- How an economy grows and why it crashes

- Know the city

Math

===

- Coffee time in Memphis

- Real analysis (mathematics textbook)

- Problems from the book (Halfway through this one, and I found it really enjoyable, even with only a CS bachelors)

If anyone has read any and has feedback/notes, I'm looking forward to hearing them!

Non-fiction:

- Factfulness by Hans Rosling

- The War on Science by Shawn Otto

- Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

- The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan

- The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier

Fiction:

- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

- The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson

- The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The non-fiction books were all incredible and highly recommended. I especially appreciate The War on Science as it is highly relevant in today's polarized and emotional political climate.

The fiction books were good, for the most part. However, The Magicians might be the worst book I have ever read, not limited to fiction or fantasy. For more on that, ask.

I managed to read significantly more books this year due to joining an at-work book club, which has been very nice.

> If anyone has read any and has feedback/notes, I'm looking forward to hearing them!

The wisdom of insecurity: very very good if you are at all interested in the matters it explores

Zero to one: the whole genre of business wisdom books is crap IMHO, but at least this one is short

Basic economics (Thomas Sowell): total must read

> Do conditions of perfect competition obtain in this market? Is there perfect information for all market participants? Are all offerings in the market perfectly fungible? Are entry to and exit from the market frictionless? Are all other conditions held equal? If these are not true, then your model of supply and demand is uncoupled from reality and will give wrong results.

This is a red herring on the strawman's shoulder. Good. Grief.

I really think you would be much enlightened to listen to Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics audio book. It's really long, but covers this sort of thing just oh so well.

It will help you to answer questions like: how come people in the Soviet Union were starving to death while crops rotted in the field? Among many others...

This big question has to both be whether this has the efficacy to make legitimate change in the industry and also doesn't squeeze out he competition who offer a better replacement for the existing industry.

Few people are accepting the fact that Boeing's sweetheart relationship with FAA is a result of the fact they are largely one of the fee only players in the game.

There's no competitive pressure for Boeing to change behaviour iwth the politicians and regulators in their pocket they have little to fear by going forward with business ss usual.

The fact they are managing to push Boeing to adopt more stringent training is good. I just hope it doesn't just add to the long list of things excluding any entrepreneur from honestly competing with him (just look at Virgin Airlines which was one of the most enjoyable flight experiences getting squeezed out).

Every major regulation in history has had unintended side-effects which frequently offset the benefits of the original plan (because of course they were designed for the entrenched mega-coprp interests of today with little thought of the wider long term effects on the industry).

Thomas Sowell wrote two good books which highlight a hundred examples how these well-intentioned regulations have contributed to the wealth inequality and consumer monopolies both [1] and Basic Economics [2].

Its not a simple as anti-regulation or pro-regulation, but getting the right kind of regulation based on data and with foresight into the unintended implications.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Fifth-Common-Economy/...

Thomas Sowell [1], an almost-published novelist turned hard core economist (i.e. got his Ph.D. in Economics) is one of the best writers of economics books, many having a libertarian slant.

I recommend the following books especially - 1. Basic Economics 2. Applied Economics and 3. Knowledge and decisions.

He also produced a crazy detailed trilogy about culture and has written an autobiography which might read a bit like the written version of Mad Men. He often remarks that he is 1/3rd as old as America itself.

And even if you end up completely disagreeing with his opinions, it is worth it to check out at least one of his works to see that it is possible to write economics books which are not utterly boring.

[1] After 9/11, he turned into a slightly loony war hawk. But his best work was produced before that.

Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Basic Economics[1] by Thomas Sowell.

It's a fairly detailed book but it's worth the time. If you're too busy to read a whole book, you might want to take a look at "Economics in One Lesson" [2] by Herny Hazlitt.

The foundation for economic education[3] has some great articles too about economics and public choice.

[1]https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowel/dp/04650...
[2] https://fee.org/media/14946/economicsinonelesson.pdf
[3] https://fee.org

What a great question! I hope I can help.

The biggest differences in economic debates are not between people who have different viewpoints. The biggest differences are between people who have actually studied economics and know what they're talking about, and most people, who are saying things that don't make sense, and basing most of their arguments on misunderstandings and wishful thinking.

I find that just reading a lot of "real" economics from real economists will usually make everything you read much, much clearer, whether you come at it from the "left" or the "right". I also tend to find that most economists are significantly to the "right" of the standard populace, which would make it even better for your needs. (This could just be my biased reading habits, but I think not - I have other thoughts on the subject but they're not for now).

Now, how can you go about reading real economists? The best way is to actually study economics, which you can do either via online videos (plenty of them available) or reading a textbook. I recommend Mankiw's "Principles of Economics" textbook, it's very readable.

If you don't have the time/inclination for reading a whole textbook, the next best thing is to read more "introduction to economics" books. A few that I highly recommend:

1. Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell. Brilliant book, was my first introduction to real economics. Most people will say it's heavily biased to the "right", so could be good for your usecase, but keep it in mind.

2. Naked Economics - Charled Wheelan. A bit shorter and lighter than Sowell, but a great book. I think it's a lot more balanced.

3. Great Courses courses on economics (audiobooks). A good one to start with is "Economics" by Timothy Taylor.

After this you can dive deeper into specific questions/areas you care about, e.g. there are brilliant courses by the Great Courses on how the stock market works, etc. Very useful to know what's actually going on in the world.

I'm going to be a nonconformist myself and oppose the near-univeral approval of Sowell in this discussion. His book Basic Economics was the first book on econ that I read, and I was very impressed by it. It reaffirmed the rather right-wing political views that I'd inherited from my parents. However, after taking a few introductory econ classes at university and doing further reading on my own, Sowell starts to appear very ideologically driven.

Sowell is a free-market fundamentalist, in that he opposes most government intervention in markets, and universally trusts laissez-faire capitalism to provide the optimal social & economic good for practically any situation.

The problem with this position is that there's simply a ton of evidence that targeted government intervention provides far better outcomes in many situations.

Another classic example is environmental pollution, a classic case of tragedy of the commons. On the topic of global warming, Sowell doesn't even try to address the issue. He belives climate change is a hoax perpetuated by Democrats.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/27/sowell-the-catchwords...

Sowell writes in a conversational style, which is great for accessibility for non-economics. However, he is rightly criticized as failing to cite rigorous studies to back up his opinions.

For a more balanced view of basic economics, I'd highly recommend Principles of Economics by Greg Mankiw.

Any econ101 book will do. I'd suggest Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell.

Short version: Supply (housing) is being artificially restrained from being built out (through regulation). While demand (those moving to the area) keeps increasing. Low supply and high demand = higher prices.

Solution: Build more housing.

It's a simple problem, navigating the bureaucracy is the hard part.

Here's another vote for Basic Economics. It's a great (and fairly thorough) overview, written in a down-to-earth manner. Lots of real-life examples are used to explain basic economic principles, making this subject understandable and even enjoyable (for me, at least).

Here is a direct link to it on Amazon (reviewers here gave it high ratings as well):
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-3rd-Ed-Economy/dp/0465...

I'm reading Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics and the idea of inherent value is addressed in the 2nd chapter:

“The most fundamental reason why there is no such thing as an objective or “real” value is that there would be no rational basis for economic transactions if there were. When you pay a dollar for a newspaper, obviously the only reason you do so is that the newspaper is more valuable to you than the dollar is.

At the same time, the only reason people are willing to sell the newspaper is that a dollar is more valuable to them than the newspaper is. If there were any such thing as a “real” or objective value of a newspaper—or anything else—neither the buyer nor the seller would benefit from making a transaction at a price equal to that objective value, since what would be acquired would be of no greater value than what was given up. In that case, why bother to make the transaction in the first place?”

I've read six Thomas Sowell books in the past few years. His book Basic Economics is a classic, but my favorite of his is Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One. It covers the things that the former does but, as the title suggests, applies it to a real-life scenario. He then walks through the scenario as it plays out to demonstrate his point to the reader. For example, when a city artificially lowers the rent, it makes apartments more affordable, but what happens afterwards? he would then play the scenario out as it affects tenants, landlords, and the rental market. I highly recommend it!

The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell

The World Is Flat - Thomas Friedman

The Four Steps To The Epiphany - Steve Blank

The Game - Neil Strauss

The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

Ultra Marathon Man - Dean Karnazes

Sowell's Basic Economics is the easiest to read one I have seen, and for the math phobic it has no equations.

Another really good, if idiosyncratic, book is David Friedman's Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life.

Also Thomas Sowell's Knowledge and Decisions covers roughly the same ground as Hayek's Use of Knowledge in Society, but is newer and more readable.

The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli

The 48 Rules of Power - Robert Greene

Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big - Scott Adams

Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell

The World Is Flat - Thomas L. Friedman

The Penguin History of the World: Sixth Edition - J. M. Roberts and Odd Arne Westad